Srinagar was on the cusp of a tourist revival only two weeks ago. Now it is in lockdown as anti-India protests ripple across the Kashmir valley. And Indian tourists who had begun to flock here again have taken flight.

AP

Indian paramilitary soldiers arrive at the site of a protest in Srinagar, India June 30, 2010.

In mid-June, it was almost impossible to get a room at the five-star Grand Lalit hotel. The luxury hotel, built in 1910 by Hari Singh, the last Maharajah of Kashmir, was packed with tourists willing to pay $300 or more a night to escape the heat of the Indian plains.

This afternoon, the gardens of the Grand Lalit, which overlook Dal Lake and the Himalayas, are bereft of visitors. The duty manager says they are running at 50% occupancy and cancellations are pouring in. Until the latest violence, the hotel was doing its best high season in a decade, the manager said.

Advertisement

Busloads of Indian tourists have been leaving at night by road to Jammu to avoid the violence which spread yesterday to south Kashmir, eyewitnesses said.

Foreign tourists had also started to return to Kashmir, the Himalayan territory promoted by the local tourism board as “Paradise on Earth.”

A few weeks ago, a group of tourists from Hong Kong was admiring the beautiful Mughal Gardens near Dal Lake, unaware of fighting between police and demonstrators in the old town of Srinagar, half an hour’s drive away. Local authorities say more tourists have visited Kashmir this year than in the past two decades.

India’s government pointed towards the tourist upsurge as evidence that peace was deepening in Kashmir, where a militant struggle for independence has tailed off since 2004.

True, India’s control of the state, supported by half a million security personnel – and its crushing of a Pakistani-backed militancy — has meant that deaths from fighting are at their lowest level since the insurgency against Indian rule began in 1989.

But the skirmishes between security forces and stone-throwing protesters in recent weeks – sparked after the Central Reserve Police Force killed a boy with a tear gas canister in Srinagar on June 11 – has revealed high levels of anti-India discontent masked by that veneer of calm.

That death reverberated across the valley, fueling protests in Baramulla and Sopore, towns in the north of the valley, where anti-Indian militant activity has always been highest. Yesterday, CRPF and police personnel shot dead three teenagers in Anantnag, in the south of the valley.

The central government is standing behind Omar Abdullah, the pro-India chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, who has blamed the recent violence on “anti-national” interests. Home Minister P. Chidabaram said on Tuesday that he could not rule out the possibility that Pakistani militants, who continue to infiltrate in to India-held Kashmir, were fomenting the trouble.

Mr. Abdullah’s government has imposed an indefinite curfew across the valley. A spokesman for the Home Ministry denied rumors that Delhi was considering taking direct control of the state as it has done in periods of tension in the past.

For now, the Indian government has restricted itself to sending more security forces. On Tuesday, authorities deployed 3,000 more Border Security Force personnel to Kashmir.

The people of Srinagar stayed at home on Wednesday amid a strict curfew. Shops were locked up and schools closed indefinitely. Armed forces were stationed every few yards, on street corners and roofs. Armored vehicles – known locally as Rakshak – drove slowly down the center of empty highways. Nearby, a group of boys took advantage of the eerie silence to stage a game of street cricket on a normally-busy street.

About India Real Time

India Real Time offers analysis and insights into the broad range of developments in business, markets, the economy, politics, culture, sports, and entertainment that take place every single day in the world’s largest democracy. Regular posts from Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires reporters around the country provide a unique take on the main stories in the news, shed light on what else mattered and why, and give global readers a snapshot of what Indians have been talking about all week. You can contact the editors at indiarealtime(at)wsj(dot)com.